Tag: Vadim Finkelchtein

Fedor Emelianenko’s manager Vadim Finkelchtein did an interview recently with Championat.com about the fighting future of his fighter whose career has hit a roadblock following his third straight loss two weeks ago to Dan Henderson. During the Q&A the Dana White’s favorite crazy Russian revealed that “The Last Emperor” will fight in the fall in Russia on the next M-1 Global show, possibly against fellow slumping former PRIDE standout Kevin Randleman, and that the event will likely be shown on Showtime.

Check out the full translation of what Vadim had to say after the jump.

(…and I want Gus Johnson’s make-up artist to get me ready for each show.)

With just one fight remaining on his current Strikeforce contract, Fedor Emelianenko’s future with the California-based promotion could be decided this week, according to the Russian heavyweight’s manager Vadim Finkelchtein.

In an interview with MMAJunkie, Finkelchtein revealed that they are primarily negotiating with Showtime as they want to include in Fedor’s contract a deal to co-promote Emelianko’s fights with his M-1 Global corporation and Strikeforce’s broadcast partner.

Does this strike anyone else as being a bit odd? Can you see Ed Soares sitting down with Spike TV to iron out the details of an Anderson Silva contract extension?

I’m actually starting to feel bad for Scott Coker. It’s becoming clear that the patients are running the asylum.

— Emelianenko called the offer he got from the UFC “miserable,” and nowhere near the six-fight, $30 million reports that circulated on the internet. Finkelchtein said that if those rumored numbers about Fedor’s contract offer were true, they would have signed with the UFC.

— Finkelchtein claimed that the idea of Anderson Silva as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world is a product of the UFC media machine, and Brock Lesnar is also just a product of the UFC’s hype. He said that Brett Rogers is better than Brock Lesnar.

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker can’t even take one goddamned vacation to Italy without the world falling apart back home. In this video interview, Coker responds to all the recent speculation about Fedor Emelianenko‘s possible signing to Strikeforce (it’s not happening yet, at least), and a reported last-minute attempt to merge Strikeforce with Affliction (not even close). Coker explains that Fedor’s current crop of suitors include boxing promoters and network television, and discusses why he didn’t want to "sell out" Brett Rogers for the Fedor fight.

On the actual reason for Affliction’s demise, Coker says "escalating the fighter purses way beyond the true value, I think sooner or later the natural laws of economics apply to all businesses, and it finally applied to Affliction." How true. And if Fedor ever did sign with Strikeforce? "I feel pretty confident that we could give him four or five different opponents that would make sense for him."

We don’t speak the Russkie, but according to rough translations of the above shout-out video, Aleksander Emelianenko would just like to say thank you to all his fans, and vows to come to America soon to "beat everyone in the UFC." Yes, everyone — even the lightweights, we’d have to assume. And sure, Aleksander seems to pop up every few months to make similar proclamations, despite the fact that the CSAC’s Bill Douglas once stated that he’ll never be licensed to fight in the U.S. again. But things feel a little different now…and dare we say, hopeful.

Back in March, Aleks said he was pondering an offer from the UFC. At the time, we pointed out that his Affliction contract would get in the way of a UFC signing happening in the immediate future, but now that Affliction is toast, he’s basically a free agent again; remember, he no longer has any official ties to M-1 either. Just spitballin’ here, but could the UFC pick him up to put in European shows, thereby skirting his blacklisted status in the U.S.? (After all, the CSAC never came out and said "Hep B" — that was just the widespread rumor.) Or is this one of those pipe dreams that will never materialize, no matter how many ethical guidelines are bent?

“At the moment we can’t certainly say the bout will take place come July because the contract is not signed. However, the both parties are involved in the negotiation process and we are about to break the finishing tape although we haven’t come to an agreement concerning every detail as of yet”

Vadim, I swear to God, if you fuck this up. Of course, the details they’re still hashing out likely have to do with money and the ring-vs.-cage thing. But the thought of Vadim playing hardball in negotiations when Fedor finally has the chance to face a top-ten heavyweight outside of the UFC is completely infuriating. For all of Finkelchtein/Echteld’s efforts to protect Emelianenko’s value (i.e., ensure he doesn’t take fights he can lose), they don’t seem to realize that Fedor’s value drops further each month that he doesn’t face credible opponents. You gotta give a little, guys! For the record, MMAPayout is reporting that Emelianenko has already been offered over $2 million per fight from Affliction.

But Finkelchtein’s statement wasn’t the only interesting bit posted on M1MixFight this week…

Might as well pop some Excedrin now, because your head will be aching after this one. According to ADCombat.com, M-1 Global is quietly setting up its first event in Russia, which will go down at St. Petersburg’s 3000-seat Ice Palace on April 3rd. One of the promotional images is above; the event will be headlined by Aleksander Emelianenko (against a yet-unnamed opponent), with M-1/PRIDE/Bodog vets Roman Zentsov and Amar Suloev also scheduled to fight (ditto). According to ADCombat’s anonymous “Russian insider”:

“With the Russian elections last weekend, advertising before [then] was next to impossible, as most attention is focused on the elections. The smaller venue may indicate a good bit of pragmatism on the part of the promoters, since they are only going to have a month or so to really push the event.”

So, by now you’re thinking, “if this is supposed to be an M-1 Global event, why does that ad clearly say M-1 Mix Fight?” Very good question. ADCombat writes:

In a previous conversation, M-1 Global’s Monte Cox confirmed that [Vadim] Finkelstein and [Apy] Echteld would be promoting events with the M-1 Global name, however the infrastructure for the show and promotion are independent of what Cox will use when M-1 Global begins to move forward in the United States.

Which explains absolutely nothing, considering that Finkelchtein isn’t promoting this event with M-1 Global’s name, but under his old Mix Fight label. According to RussianMMA.com, the St. Petersburg event will actually be the second leg of the not-very-well-publicized “M-1 Challenge” that we briefly mentioned last month. The first M-1 Challenge event was apparently held last Sunday in the Netherlands, with the Fedor-coached Russian Red Devil Sports Club competing against France’s Team Amossou, and a Netherlands team taking on a pack of Germans; shockingly, the Russians lost three out of five matches to the Frenchmen. (Don’t ask how the Netherlands/Germany matchups went down, because results weren’t published on M1MixFight.com, and news hasn’t yet trickled down to any other American MMA websites.)

RussianMMA reports that the April 3rd M-1 Challenge event will include teams from Russia, Japan, and “Europe,” and Emelianenko/Zentsov/Suloev will be competing in superfights. Checking M-1 Global’s official site, of course, confirmed nothing — it hasn’t been updated since New Year’s Eve, and you can’t expect Monte Cox to keep tabs on Vadim all the time. Especially when M-1 Global is such a disorganized pit of confusion…

To clarify the miscommunication and conflicting rumors generated by M-1 Global and its maverick Russian arm Mix Fight M-1, Sam Caplan tracked down Fedor Emelianenko’s manager Vadim Finkelchtein for an e-mail interview on his ProElite blog. (By the way, I’m spelling Vadim’s last name as it has appeared in M-1 Global’s press releases and on their website, not as every MMA journalist in the United States insists on spelling it.) But between Vadim’s shaky written English and his inherent caginess, not much was accomplished. Witness the first question:

Sam Caplan: There has been a great deal of mis-communication in regard to Fedor’s involvement with a card to be held in Japan on Dec. 31. M-1 Global president Monte Cox has said it will not be an M-1 Global event yet a statement made on Mixfight.ru, which I believe is affiliated with M-1 Global, claims that it will be an Mixfight M-1 event. I realize there’s a difference in the phrase “M-1 Global” and “Mixfight M-1″ but both are using the M-1 name. Can you clear up any confusion by stating who will be promoting the Dec. 31 card in Japan that Fedor will be fighting on?

Vadim Finkelstein: An event scheduled for December, 31 in conjunction with M-1 Global and ex-Pride staff. We plan a long-term collaboration with them. Mixfight M-1 is a Russian MMA organization which makes part of M-1 Global. M-1 Global intends to hold events worldwide.

Great. Thanks for clearing that up. There are lots more non-statements like this one in the interview, but I’ll leave you with this excerpt, which may give hope to the easily encouraged: